The first stars are pure Hydrogen and Helium and they are MASSIVE and BRILLIANT! They fuse hydrogen using the proton–proton chain for most of their lives as they don't yet have the carbon, nitrogen and oxygen required to access the CNO process.

The Cosmic Architect revels in their immense photon flux and he relaxes in their inner orbit, soaking up the heat and developing a tan.

But they are short-lived. In one or two million years the absurd temperature in their cores produce photons of such high energy that they spontaneously form electron-positron pairs instead of supporting the star's outer layers by radiation pressure. This lack of pressure causes the core to collapse, driving up the temperature further, which causes yet more matter-antimatter pairs to be created in a positive feedback loop and simultaneously initiating a runaway thermonuclear explosion resulting in the star being BLOWN COMPLETELY APART, leaving naught behind to mark its once AWESOME existence.

The shock waves from these COLOSSAL explosions disrupt the smoothness of the gas clouds, speeding up the accretion process and producing more new 1st generation stars.

The first generation of stars are thus completely obliterated within 600 million years. In the process distributing their fusion products throughout the gas clouds and reionizing them at the same time. Much of this is nickel-56 which swiftly decays into iron.

Thus the Universe is seeded with at least some iron and traces of elements up to Rb from it's early days.

This is a promising start and the Architect is pleased but the metallicity of the gas clouds is still far too low for his requirements. It is time for a NEW GENERATION!